England Women's star in talks with Sussex

Sarah Taylor, the England wicketkeeper, has revealed she is in discussions to play men's second XI county cricket later this year.

Taylor, who will shortly fly to India for the Women's World Cup, is hoping to play for the Sussex second XI at some point during the 2013 season.

Mark Lane, the England Women's coach, has led the way in trying to secure Taylor a spot in a men's team and the plan is for her to start with Birmingham League side Walmley. A number of the England women's team play regular men's club cricket.

"Mark is looking at me getting some games with the second XI at Sussex and that will be just phenomenal cricket," Taylor told the Guardian. "The plan is also for me to play some early season games for the MCC boys. Mark is trying to get me a lot of men's cricket which can only help my game."

Taylor, 23, would target the longer form of limited-overs cricket where the difference in power would be more easily accommodated. One of the measurable differences between the women's and men's game is that it is played with a slightly smaller cricket ball.

"There's part of me doubting myself," she said. "I've just got to start believing in myself a little bit more. But I would love to do it. It would be such a challenge - facing a bigger ball and bigger bowlers. But I'd have to look at myself after the second XI games and say: 'Can you handle this?'"

Taylor is regarded as one of the finest women cricketers of all time. She averages 39.42 from 71 one-day internationals including four hundreds and has a strike-rate of 112 from her 46 Twenty20s (the fifth-highest among players to have made 15 or more appearances) alongside an average of 32.94

In 2011, Taylor's England team-mate Arran Brindle became the first woman to score a hundred in men's Premier League cricket as she hit 128 for Louth in the Lincolnshire League.